Thursday, May 27, 2010

“I have a chicken eye on my foot”

Grant is wearing a band-aid on the bottom of his foot that has to be replaced twice a day. It's the weirdest-looking band-aid I've ever seen.

He said his tutor found something on his foot and thought it was probably a [something in Chinese that I don't understand].

Then Buddy took Grant to the doctor, who said it probably was [something I don't understand] and gave him the band-aids and said it would probably go away in a few days.

I asked Buddy for some details but he gave me the same story Grant had given me.

Normally I'm okay with not understanding all the Chinese words that my kids and husband throw into a conversation. But since this was a medical issue and I was so out of the loop, I did what any mom would do.

I broke down.

Today when I was changing Grant's band-aid for the fourth time because he keeps picking at it I said, “I don't understand why your tutor was looking at the bottom of your foot! And I don't understand what he thinks he's found. And I don't understand why the doctor couldn't confirm it, or why he would give you medication for something that doesn't have a confirmed diagnosis!”

Oh thank you, that clears EVERYTHING up for me! My son has a chicken eye on his foot. Beautiful.

{Let's insert a pause here for me to regain my composure.}

{And to try to that image out of my head. I mean seriously, a chicken eye? That is so gross! Yet I wonder if Chinese people are grossed out when they hear our vocabulary like "shingles" and "Adam's apple" and kidney stone".}

After a few minutes of reverse engineering on google.com/translate, I figured out what Grant has on his foot is a corn and the band-aids are salicylic acid. And salicylic acid is a common, benign treatment and the corn probably will go away in a couple of days.

OK, "Chicken Eye" is downright gross but how did they come up with "Corn"? LOL

My Chinese is getting worse and worse. I didn't know what is a "Chicken Eye" either. My Mum's helper had one like a decade ago and when she announced that she was coming for a visit with the helper this year, I thought we were doomed!

It has also been known as a "fish eye."I I have one at the moment, work on my feet for 11/12 hrs a day as a massage therapist& it's been progressing with pain& soreness for the last week! Started 3weeks ago,&after this last annoying week..I decided to do some research of the appearance& symptoms. Claus, calluses,& fish eye(s) all kept coming up, as well as the treatment of salicylic acid and/or Lamisil cream+ corn& callus pumice stones. I BETTER get rid of this thing because my wonderful boss doesn't offer medical insurance &I don't want an astronomical Dr. bill to remove this thing! Wish me luck.

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Why is this blog called "The Downtown Diner"? If blogs were restaurants, mine would be a downtown diner. The food isn't haute cuisine and it's not even necessarily all that nutritious. Basically I'm the grilled cheese sandwich of blogosphere. But the waitress here knows your name and she's always glad to see you. Stop by whenever you're in the neighborhood and need a smile.